One predictable consequence of a massive bailout for investment banks is strong political pressure to provide similar handouts for others. The New York Times reports that big financial firms are starting to lobby for an even wider bailout than the already hefty $700 billion plan proposed by the Bush Administration:
Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.
Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages. At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees. Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury